Hunt resumes

Brown bear season to reopen through November for permitted hunters

The brown bear hunt in Game Management Units 7 and 15 on the Kenai Peninsula will resume Thursday for both drawing- and registration-permitted hunters.

The season will run through November, unless six adult female brown bears are killed, said Jeff Selinger, area wildlife biologist for The Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

“The department was willing to listen to the public about increasing opportunities (to harvest brown bears) while working within their guidelines … of not taking too many sows,” said Bob Ermold, Kenai-Soldotna Fish and Game Advisory Committee vice chair.

He said it was a “really cooperative conversation.”

The season temporarily closed Oct. 10 by Fish and Game emergency order when 11 adult female brown bears were reported killed. The total deaths surpassed the department’s management objective of 10 adult female deaths.

Because many adult female brown bears — especially those pregnant or with cubs — will have denned before the hunt resumes, boars will be the majority of brown bears available for harvest during the later wave of the season, Selinger said.

He said it is an effective way to increase the public’s opportunity to hunt while also protecting the brown bear populations.

“It is a pretty safe time for taking males and not females,” said Ted Spraker, acting chair of the Board of Game.

The temporary closure also gave Fish and Game biologists time to reflect on the numbers of harvested brown bears. Since Jan. 1, biologists counted 33 brown bear deaths; 11 of those deaths were adult female bears, Selinger said.

With the second wave of the fall season, Fish and Game will effectively switch to a three-year running average to manage adult female brown bear deaths, Selinger said.

The management strategy in place before only granted 10 adult female brown bear deaths per season, which is why the season temporarily closed, he said.

Spraker said the Board of Game intended to pass the three-year running average in a 2012 January statewide Board of Game meeting, but their intent was lost in a series of communication errors.